Work pays, we are always told, but for many it is clearly not paying enough. The latest official child poverty figures released today show that in-work poverty is on the rise, with two-thirds of poor children now living in families with at least one working parent.

First, for the last 30 years, poverty in the UK has hovered close to the one-in-five mark, mostly a little below, but sometimes a little above, but a rate almost double the level of the 1970s and much higher than the average amongst other rich nations.

This has been driven by a sustained widening in the gap between top and bottom along with the erosion of life chances.

Yesterday on the pages of this blog, Stewart Lansley claimed that I had “hurled a hand grenade” into the poverty debate by urging Labour to rethink its approach to child poverty. Leaving aside the hyperbole of that statement, Lansley’s case seems to be that my intervention “chimes with the line being taken by the coalition” in its attempts to redefine child poverty and its causes. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Today Blackpool has become the first council in England to provide free breakfasts for all its primary school children, whilst in London, 50 schools will be involved in a scheme in which free breakfasts are granted to pupils. In October, … Continued